Arnab Goswami: From Bite-taker to Bite-maker

Times Now’s Editor-in-Chief responds to articles on him

Arnab Goswami on ‘ The Newshour’. (Inset: Cover of the current issue of ‘Outlook’)

Arnab Goswami has been the subject of four pieces in this month alone. His position on banning a documentary on the 2012 Delhi gang rape victim and the government calling Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai ‘anti-national’ has prompted most of the discussion.

The latest to publish a story is Outlook magazine. In its cover story dated March 23, the magazine takes a look at Goswami’s journalism, incorporating the views of many journalists including those who are currently with the channel or were associated with it in the past, and media scholars.

Arnab Goswami told The News Minute:

It would have been apt to put a tribute to the independent journalism of Vinod Mehta by putting him on the cover this time.

The immediate context to the situation is #NirbhayaInsulted, the campaign that Times Now ran, when it became known that NDTV was going to telecast India’s Daughter, a documentary on the Delhi gang rape victim. The campaign raised eyebrows and later caused disquiet after the government prohibited the telecast of the documentary, presumably on account of the pressure created by the channel. The Outlook story claims that it was after watching the Newshour that day that the government decided to ban the documentary.

All this had happened when nobody had even seen the film, and all that was known about the documentary was through a report in the UK-based newspaper The Telegraph, which carried some statements made by one of the convicts Mukesh Singh in an interview he gave to the filmmaker.

Outlook Magazine’s cover story on prime time television.

Writing in Newsluandry, Abhinandan Sekhri for instance says that he is now critical of Goswami even though he does respect him, because Goswami actively participated in an attack on free speech by seeking for a ban on the documentary.

Almost as a precursor to this, on March 2, Kavita Krishnan wrote a piece on Scroll.com titled “Zehen ki loot: the plunder of reason by Arnab Goswami”. The title clearly suggests what the article contains. Krishnan wrote the piece after repeatedly being called “anti-national” on the Newshour.

It is rare for Indian journalists to discuss, let alone critique the particular brand of journalism that a very senior journalist practices. If nothing else, it is a healthy development that the media is now open to discussing the conduct of the members of its fraternity.